Lemur Sounds + Beatboxing = Sick Beats for Conservation

May
27, 2015 - What happens when an anthropology professor teams up with a music
producer/beatboxer? They create a conservation campaign you can dance to.
Patricia Wright and Ben Mirin are using the vocalizations of Madagascar lemurs
to create music, hoping it will not only entertain but also help protect the lemurs'
natural habitat.

PATRICIA WRIGHT, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY, STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY: I study lemurs in the wild in Madagascar and when I first got
there, nobody had studied their calls at all. But I've been studying them for
30 years, so I pretty well have got all the languages down now.

Well, I knew about Ben, that he had been working with bird songs,
and that he was incorporating them together into a new kind of music. And I
thought, "why is he using bird songs when lemurs have much more interesting
songs?"

BEN MIRIN, NATURALIST, BEATBOXER AND WRITER:
I started playing recordings and I was just like, "what am I
listening to?" I had no idea that they were so musical and that their
tones could be so evocative of different situations and emotions.

Some of them have kind of these piggish grunts, and this kind of
[grunting noise] and these deep things. Others will go
"oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh." Then, they'll defy your expectations
and have that soaring indri call, the "oaaaaaaeiiiiip."

And when they sing together, they actually form musical cords, so
for the purposes of structuring it in music, you do get a chance to both pay
tribute to the fact that you're working with an indri voice, but it is also
echoing the fundimental rules of this human musical system we've created.

PATRICIA WRIGHT, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY, STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY:
Ah, what do I hear when I hear Ben's music? I spent a lot of time
in Brooklyn, so I hear the Brooklyn beat there. But then I spent a lot more
time in rainforest and what he has done to incorporate the kinds of songs from
the rainforest, it's a real song of life and it brings joy to my heart. I can't
wait to actually play some of Ben's music back to those lemurs in the forest.

BEN MIRIN, NATURALIST, BEATBOXER AND WRITER:
I'm just in a totally different headspace now. Having gone through
the musical process of accessing this group of animals has inspired me to learn
more about them, so I'm hoping that by doing this and sharing with other
people, I'm hoping that I can share that inspirational process.

The inescapable reality is that lemurs are some of the most
critically endangered animals on the planet. In some ways, it's wonderful to be
able to preserve things through audio but, in my mind, it's pointless if it
doesn't insire protection of the animal itself.

PATRICIA WRIGHT, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF ANTHROPOLOGY, STONY BROOK UNIVERSITY:
You know, Madagascar, the Malagasi people have a lot of
challenges, because it's a very poor country, but you know, life is more than
just cash crops and getting funding. There's also celebrations. There's also
celebrating who you are, being proud of your family, being proud of your
country, being proud of your heritage, and lemurs are a part of that for them.

With Ben's new innovation of bringing the lemurs into the music,
this will be the glue for the conservation project. I think it's going to be a
new conservation tool.

Lemur Sounds + Beatboxing = Sick Beats for Conservation

May
27, 2015 - What happens when an anthropology professor teams up with a music
producer/beatboxer? They create a conservation campaign you can dance to.
Patricia Wright and Ben Mirin are using the vocalizations of Madagascar lemurs
to create music, hoping it will not only entertain but also help protect the lemurs'
natural habitat.